


Ritual Orchid

by booktick



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Campaign 2 (Critical Role), Episode: c02e056 The Favor, F/F, Falling In Love, Fear of Death, Friendship/Love, Grief/Mourning, POV Yasha, Psychological Trauma, Regret, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Suffering, Unrequited Love, Wildemount Campaign, Wildemount Campaign Setting, mention of other characters, not spoiler free
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-18 16:29:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18253598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booktick/pseuds/booktick
Summary: "It happened again."





	Ritual Orchid

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own none of this franchise.
> 
> A/N: Second CR fic, and my tense is still all over the place. I tried my best to keep Yasha IC. I really love her so it was fun to try and write her here.

* * *

Everything happened so fast, she's not sure what to do or say. Usually she sticks to the back, listens and tries to help where she can. She told herself ever since Molly...maybe she isn't as strong as she thought. She had been ready to protect her friends and yet it was her that kept attacking them. She hurt them and didn't stop hurting until Beau struck her from her daze. _I'm sorry_ , falls from a heavy tongue but it doesn't sound like enough. There isn't time for talk, there's still a battle and it ends, like most things in her life, an ally dead.

This one, pink and friendly, wakes after Jester goes to him. She's never seen such a feat. The Firbolg, he surprises her, as his first instinct is to heal them. The guilt isn't so easily washed away like the physical wounds inflicted. She tried to remind herself it was Caleb and Fjord too. That it couldn't be helped. But as her eyes, heavy from grief, wanders across the lot she's with, all Yasha can think is:  _It happened again._

Not much else is said, can be said really, though she apologizes a few more times because all the rest sits in her throat until she chokes on it. Yasha doesn't call out to her God, not today. She wears the guilt on her shoulders the entire time they go to seek their reward. How could she do that? She had felt a betrayal of not only to her friends but of her self. It seemed no matter where she turned, where she stepped, bones piled beneath her feet. There had been blood spilled, so much of it. By her own hand and...

And now she...she, who turned her back on everything she had known, had found herself nearly in ashes--not for the first time. She missed the Circus, she missed Molly. Everything here, Xhorhas, it made it so hard to breathe, to move. Every word that leaves her tongue is heavy and soundless except for constant apology.

She sees the way they look at her, when they  _do_ look at her and it's like her dreams again. That they've seen her this time, seen what she really is and will leave her too. Yasha tried to shut out the thoughts but they piled in further, digging away at her spine with each breath she took in Xhorhas. 

The thought of staying in Xhorhas doesn't help ease any of the pain, not that she expected it to. She had...not planned on returning so soon...at all maybe. She doesn't know anymore. And The Mighty Nein were not exactly a quiet bunch after all. They should go back to the Empire. However, she knows why they are here. She will not leave a friend out to dry because of her sufferings. If she must endure, she will do so on her own terms but not...not without her friends. 

She can stand. She can stand and keep going. She must. Xhorhas or no Xhorhas, Yasha would not fail to be there as she had with Molly, with... _her_. Her mind was too full of all of...whatever this was and it made her insides ache with each breath. She had to lean on her sword a few times just to keep up with the rest of the Mighty Nein.

Her feet do not thank her for any of this, instead they drag with each step and are heavier than her soul when she stands in one place. It was already a long day and they hadn't even gotten their reward yet...and speaking of rewards...she hoped it was gold. Gold meant good progress, a good ending to that mess in the well.

When Jester and Nott come rushing out, Fjord a bit slower, from the office of the Drow, she hoped it meant they could move on. Maybe then they could really talk, they'd been doing that more. She had told Jester and Nott about her wife after all. If she could just express her troubles, her regret a bit clearer---but then it's said they are to seek an audience with the Bright Queen and she's drowned by her fears. Beau touches her shoulder, squeezed before they carry on. It's surely meant as encouragement but it burns.

It's all so fast. One moment they're being pushed into a small space and...she isn't exactly sure if it's magic or science or both when she stepped forward but she's suddenly in a whole other place. A palace, she figured out right before it's said. Her heart is a constant hammer inside, begging to be released. This was not a place for the Mighty Nein. This was not a place for her. But they are surrounded by soldiers of the Dynasty, led into a waiting area with only an hour to spare until they will meet the Empress.

She sits with the rest of her friends anyway. There is no running away this time. They all talk together, it comes so easy for Fjord and Beau. She watched the monk, how expressive Beau could be when her blood was pumping. This was the woman who had dragged her back to her true self, who saved her from her own demons--even if only for a while.

Who knows what would have happened if Beau hadn't stopped her? Yasha does not like those sorts of thoughts, never did. It's too easy to imagine bones in place of her wife, flowers resting on ash and the dead cannot love her back. Molly was dead too. What if her friends...if Beau...

Beau would never accept death. Beau would always keep fighting, even if it was a losing battle. If it meant protecting the rest of the Mighty Nein, so be it. It terrifies Yasha. She has grown to the monk's presence. She did not want death to be her constant company, only Beau, only life. Why must this keep happening? Each day they seem to scrape the surface of survival. She misses the Sun of Wildemount. She misses the flowers...

There are no flowers here. There is no  _life_ for her here. What is her purpose now? What did Xhorhas offer after taking everything from her? She does not know. Beau always had an idea on that sort of thing..on grief, on pain...suffering. But she does not ask the monk, or the others. The Firbolg, Caduceus, might have a few ideas. She might ask him later, if she can find her courage before then. It's too often she finds herself lost in her head. So much had happened and all at once too.

Yasha hung her head, and stared at her hands. Her fingers curled into fists, as her hair became a curtain and shielded her eyes from the rest of the room. She could still feel the heat of Beau's palm on her cheek. The sting had spread along her flesh in a vicious bite. When it had reached her mouth, it was something Yasha had not expected at all, something warmer and kinder and undeserved. It wasn't exactly familiar but she hadn't wiped it away with the back of her palm either.

She finally lifted her head once more, eyes fell over the Mighty Nein in one full swoop. Each face stuck in her memory, a lot like Molly. It did not make the pain go away, it numbed it some them still breathing. She was sure it would burn again in their...their next battle. Always another battle. Always...more. If she could just...

She uncurled her fingers, the stress in her bones ate away at her palms, "Beau-" the name was a whisper on Yasha's tongue. 

Before she can try to say more, the doors to the room open and the Drow man from before stepped through. Her mouth shut once again, firm and unyielding. Her fingers curled back into her palms, nails bit into her palms, still stained from the...combat from the night before. She watched as the Drow sat and new exchanges were made. Something scratched at the back of her neck, not like it had the night before. This feeling was a lot like back at that bar. She had not liked it then, and she did not like it now.

This would not end well.


End file.
